Gather 'Round, People: part II (FIXED)

Cathy Freeman walks a lap of honour, carrying the Australian and Aboriginal Flags, after winning Gold in the Women’s 400m Finals. (AAP PHOTO/Dean Lewins).

How we tell ourselves about our histories goes a long way to how we form our senses of identity. As societies and as individuals, we work through events and issues, and how we look at them later helps us define who we say we are. But what happens when we cannot agree on our past? Why do we feel the need to fight over statues, and how can we deal with it?

This episode is about dealing with this problem - dissonant heritage - and about the on-going pursuit by both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians to re-define Australian history. How have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians struggled to recover a rightful role in modern Australia and Australian history; a role that recognises their journey, their resistance and their achievements, as well as what they've gained and what has been lost throughout?

The History Wars

This is an articulate article which constitutes a critique of the approach of leftist-historians, written by Associate Professor of History and Politics, Gregory Melleuish. It was published in the Quadrant magazine in April, 2017. It's worth reading, if slightly tedious. We're pretty sure he would not think much of our podcast.

The problem, I suspect, is that Australian history has become just another excuse for preaching politically correct ideology at students.

— Gregory Melleuish

Beautiful Moments

Change demands many and various demands for change

We wanted to put up a video of Cathy Freeman's 400m winning sprint at Sydney 2000, but it's owned by the International Olympic Committee, and they won't let us. Possibly they don't like us because we're not a giant sack of money.

Nicky Winmar, photo by Wayne Ludbey

Adam Goodes pointing out a girl who had called him an “ape”.

And here is an interview with Stan Grant in 2016, on his recent work looking at modern Aboriginal communities and identities.

It's the constitution, it's Mabo...

Eddie Koiki Mabo 1936-1992

The Blokes Up Top

Since Whitlam had poured sand through the hand of Vincent Lingiari, regressive steps had been taken by successive government that ensured the indigenous struggle would have to continue.

When Paul Keating made his Redfern address, it seemed that the wind had now changed direction, and was blowing towards proper reconciliation.

Keating’s Rebellion

Alas, it was not to be. In 1996, Australia entered 11 years of governance under the conservative Howard regime. Nothing in their indigenous policies would reflect the sentiment inherent within Keating's speech.

Howard's Blemishes

We wish that we could have found more complete footage of this speech. It's very biased against the former PM, so full disclaimer there. Oh well, it's the juicy bits anyway.

When Howard was outed in 2007, his opponent had campaigned strongly on making a federal apology to the Stolen Generation. This he got to do in February, 2008.

Rudd's Apology

First of all, it's just hard to see why people don't like politicians, isn't it?

The apology was symbolically significant, but conditions today remain as appalling as ever for indigenous communities around the country. This remains unresolved.